Tag Archives: Actility

Actility, the industry leader in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), and Digita, the Finnish broadcast network operator, are teaming up to take the next step towards a fully-connected Finland by rolling out a LoRa network. Following the completion of a successful trial period of several months, the companies have seen that the market is ready for a full-scale commercial deployment. The service is available for local implementation everywhere in Finland from October 2016. Rollout for full area coverage starts from major cities. This is the first commercial LoRa network for IoT to be deployed in Finland. The deployment also emphasizes the opportunity that LoRa brings for companies like Digita, which is not a traditional cellular operator, to leverage the tall radio and television masts of their broadcast network to become key players in the internet of Things.

The LoRa network will enable services across a wide variety of domains, including smart cities, smart agriculture and logistics. Exploring the benefits for smart homes, during the trial period, Digita and partner VVO Group evaluated a solution using Actility’s platform, which monitored temperature and humidity in 200 of VVO Group’s properties in the city of Espoo. “Maintaining healthy living conditions is easy when the factors that affect residents’ comfort can be recognised in real time,” explains Kimmo Rintala, head of VVO Group’s property development unit. “Continuous measuring also enables us to detect obvious apartment-specific faults even before the residents themselves have time to react. Digita’s solution eliminates the need for property-specific installations, as it is based on sensors within apartments that are able to communicate directly with Digita’s system.”

The LoRa core network service is delivered through Actility’s ThingPark Wireless solution, a fully integrated platform for the Internet of Things. Making use of Digita’s broadcast masts means that the technology can be deployed at very high points overlooking the city and be exploited to its full range. 15 of Digita’s 38 main masts are over 300 meters high.

“Finland is an innovative country, with a real hunger for new technologies. The IoT provides fantastic new opportunities to create compelling services for citizens and government. The increased area that can be reached quickly by implementing LoRa technology on broadcast masts, ensures even better coverage and reduces the required number of gateways. With our partners at Digita, we expect to be able to beat the current LoRa range record of 15km,” declares Olivier Hersent, CTO of Actility.

“We believe that IoT technology will revolutionise our daily lives. It can be used, for example, to monitor building conditions, save energy, prevent water damage, prevent theft, locate objects, locate pets, optimize farming and monitor health. In theory, there is no limit to the kinds of applications that are possible,” explains Digita’s COO Markus Ala-Hautala.

About LoRaWAN™LoRaWAN is designed to connect low-cost, battery-operated sensors over long distances in harsh environments that were previously too challenging or cost prohibitive to connect. A LoRaWAN gateway deployed on a building or tower can connect to sensors more than 10km away or to water meters deployed underground or in basements. The LoRaWAN protocol offers unique and unequaled benefits in terms of bi-directionality, security, mobility and accurate localization that are not addressed by other LPWAN technologies. These benefits will enable the diverse use cases and business models that will enable deployments of large scale LPWAN IoT networks globally. (https://www.lora-alliance.org/)

About DigitaDigita broadcasts radio and TV programmes reliably to all of Finland, every day of the year. Applying cutting-edge digital technology, Digita develops and supplies versatile Internet TV and radio services along with services based on comprehensive network infrastructure. Digita’s main clients are media houses and mobile and broadband operators that provide the very best content.

About Actility & ThingPark™Actility is the industry leader in LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) large-scale infrastructure and the innovator behind the ThingPark IoT Solution platform. ThingPark is a carrier-grade IoT platform which enables service providers to accelerate their IoT strategy and go-to-market. ThingPark Wireless delivers long-range networks for low-power sensors and devices. ThingPark Mash-upprovides IoT protocol and data mediation services, enabling web applications to connect seamlessly with data from a vast range of different sensors. ThingPark Marketplace is at the heart of of an ecosystem of certified IoT devices, connectivity, and application partners. Actility is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance.. (http://www.thingpark.com/en)

Actility, the industry leader in low power wide area networking, today announced that it is partnering with Foxconn Technology Group (Foxconn) to launch ThingPark China, a collaborative initiative to deliver a comprehensive suite of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to the Chinese market. By integrating Actility’s innovative ThingPark IoT platform and Foxconn’s leading vertical information and communications technology services and solutions, ThingPark China will offer end-to-end IoT services from sensors and gateways to network management and SaaS solutions. ThingPark China will begin business operations in the third quarter of 2016.

“China is an opportunity like no other IoT market,” says Actility CEO Mike Mulica. “It’s growing 30% a year, and a third of the world’s 15 billion connected things in 2020 will be in China. Foxconn is the perfect partner for Actility, because it is a company with world-class expertise to drive innovation at scale, as well as unrivaled market access to industrial and urban China. ThingPark China delivers on our goal to serve the vast Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) IoT markets across China.”

“We are delighted to be collaborating with Actility on this exciting initiative, which is another step in our ongoing efforts to create an Internet of Things ecosystem that supports our strategic focus on providing innovative products and solutions to realize smarter lives,” says Fang-Ming Lu, Executive Vice President of Foxconn. “IoT has the potential to transform cities, industry and transport, and also the way we live and work. The synergies generated by bringing together Foxconn’s design, manufacturing and technology capabilities and Actility’s expertise in LPWA networking technology, will enable us to capitalize on the immense opportunities presented in the IoT era.”

ThingPark China will initially focus on delivering solutions to customers in China. In addition to deploying ThingPark Wireless connectivity, network operations and data management, both as SaaS and “on-premise” services, ThinkPark China will also resell LPWA gateways, which serve as essential hubs connecting sensors in the field to public or private communications networks.

China’s rapidly-growing IoT market is supported by partnerships between industry and government at the national and local levels, and some of the first customers for ThingPark China will be “smart cities”, using LPWA technology to connect sensors measuring air and water pollution, and traffic flows, and noise metering, among other uses. Other applications already in development or early deployment include energy efficiency management, manufacturing efficiency enhancement and connected healthcare. The first consumer uses for the technology in China include solutions to help parents monitor their children’s safety.

“This is the most exciting time to get into the most exciting market in IoT,” concludes Mulica. “With our partners at Foxconn, we know ThingPark China is going to be one of the most dynamic and powerful forces in the IoT business anywhere in the world. Together we are going to ride the explosive growth of the next major technology wave in China and the wider Asian market.”

ThingPark Wireless is based on Semtech’s ultra-long range, bidirectional LoRa(TM) radio transceivers for end-devices and Actility’s wireless M2M gateway with an open cloud-based platform for application development.

“ThingPark Wireless and LoRa enable easy connectivity for nodes that require multi-year battery operation and complement existing M2M deployments,” said François Sforza, Director, Wireless Long Range Products at Semtech. “ThingPark Wireless(R) will enable numerous new applications to easily connect to the cloud and increase the popularity of M2M and IoT applications.”

An open standards-based M2M application development framework

A ThingPark Wireless Smart City or Smart Building project requires only a low-cost, small antenna on a rooftop to connect sensors in a 2-5 km radius for dense cities or in a 15 km radius in countryside applications. LoRa(TM) technology has 5-10 dB more link budget than cellular technology for in-building penetration where cellular and GPS cannot reach.

The ThingPark Wireless(R) solution combines Actility’s wireless base station, an integrated backhaul network, a cloud-based platform, and simple RESTful API. This interface allows M2M application developers and cloud services providers to access sensors through a homogeneous XML-based protocol-independent syntax (oBix). Based on the ETSI M2M standard, supported by the OneM2M global partnership, ThingPark Cloud(R) ensures interoperability with a growing community of M2M sensors and application vendors in the fields of demand response, data loggers, energy management, home automation and security.

“This all-inclusive approach is new in the M2M world. Wireless sensor vendors are missing both a cost-effective long-range wireless network and an easy-to-use application framework,” said Olivier Hersent, Actility CEO. “ThingPark Wireless(R) is unique in that it empowers wireless sensor vendors with a long range network for connecting sensors and an application framework to roll-out smart applications on those end-points.”

ThingPark Cloud(R) also includes an optional SaaS BigData storage platform for large-scale data collection able to support real-time interactive database queries from authorized third-party application providers on large volumes of data.

Availability

ThingPark Wireless is now available from Actility. For more information, please visit the Actility website or contact the company at communication@actility.com.

About Semtech

Semtech Corporation (Nasdaq: SMTC), is a leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors for high-end consumer, computing, communications and industrial equipment. Products are designed to benefit the engineering community as well as the global community. The company is dedicated to reducing the impact it, and its products, have on the environment. Internal green programs seek to reduce waste through material and manufacturing control, use of green technology and designing for resource reduction. Publicly traded since 1967, Semtech is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol SMTC. For more information, visit http://www.semtech.com.

About Actility

Actility is an industry leader in Machine to Machine (M2M) large scale infrastructure with ThingPark(R), the new generation standard-based M2M communication platform. ThingPark(R) market provides access to added-value applications from Actility and partners. Actility Smart-Grid applications focus on demand optimization and management, including Demand Response, Load Shifting and Admission Control. Actility is a winner of the French Ministry of Research competition, has obtained the Grand Prix of the Tremplin Entreprise and has been rewarded by Innov’ Eco and CleanTech République for its particularly innovative approach in its Internet Of Things (IoT) solutions. Visit www.actility.com.